Remove ads

Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Reader mode
SuperSonicSound said:
The dwarves can't afford a war either, but if you guys think pitting the two factions with towering egos the size of god damned planets against each other wont lead to just that I don't know what to tell you.

A dust up between Barak Varr and the marienburg Elves will almost definitely kick off a war, because cooler heads will not prevail.

As a general rule Dwarves hate Elves, Elves hate Dwarves.

The novels for warhammer showcase this consistently, exceptional dwarves and exceptional elves can look past their prior conflicts but as a general trend the average elf or dwarf would be all to eager to engage in a 2nd round of the war if they can paint themselves as morally superior for doing it.

This blockade busting idea seems like the perfect match for it because the dwarves will view it as stopping an unconscionable economic attack, and the elves will view it as an unacceptable attack on their sovereignty over Marienburg.

Why in the love of all that's sensible would you want to put the immovable object and the unstoppable force on a collision course?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I know the dwarfs can't afford all out war either, but they're justified in this. There's no way that the elven ambassador doesn't realize that dwarf intervention is a large possibility when Marienburg is trying to interfere with a dwarf project. I have faith in people to not be stupid during the many, many stages of negotiations that war between Ulthuan and the Karaz Ankor can be avoided.

As I stated when I voted, I refuse to let Marienburg use fear of Ulthuan to bully us.
 
ReImagined said:
Once the canal exists, who are you going to be inclined to trade with, the polity that's been blockading you for the past 5 years, or the ally that's been propping up your economy in reponse during that time? I think the political concerns trump economic ones in that situation.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Pretty sure that for quite some time Marienburg will still hold the advantage simply because a lot of the actual oceangoing traders are Marienburgers and the whole system is set up with Marienburg as the key centre of trade, a canal isn't going to shift that overnight (and the other big ocean trade party, the High Elves, are also unlikely to going to favour Barak var over it). And even with the canal it is not like Marienburg position/location loses that much of its attractiveness, the city is still perfectly located to dominate the trade of most of the Empire it is just that some of the eastern (which were somewhat disconnected from the network) and southern regions have an alternative route open to them. I doubt though that many traders of for example Altdorf are going to ship their goods via the channel instead of Marienburg even with the new fancy channel.
 
[X] No, but they could help break the blockade

First comes letting Marienburg know that the Dwarfs will not tolerate a blockade.

If the greedy merchants still go through with it after that, then it's time for the Ironclads to travel there and tell them to stop.

In the extremely unlikely event that they insist on maintaining the blockade with a Dwarf navy on their doorstep, only then will it come to violence.
 
Yall making a fundamental flawed assumption there: that Dwarfs will win.
They can, but there is no guarantee there. There is no such thing as certainty in war.

And generally, what y'all doing is engaging in borderline memetic degree of "short victorious war". Those are very rarely either of those two adjectives, and great continent-spanning wars that decimated Empires started over less more than once. Tensions and conflicts have this annoying tendency to escalate wildly beyond control of any of the actors once they've started.


[X] They can make up for the loss in trade
 
Having been away from the thread, can anyone give me a rundown on the winning votes?
 
@BoneyM, there still seems to be some confusion about what the vote is actually about.

Is Mathilde just trying to give a prediction about what the dwarfs are most likely to do, or is she advising the Chamberlain on what course of action he could take to resolve the situation?

So, to pick just one of the vote options, is she saying:
a) The dwarfs won't stop building canals, and if they catch wind of the situation they will most likely send ships to break the blockade.
Or is ist:
b) The dwarfs won't stop building canals, and I think it would be a good idea to ask the dwarfs to send ships to break the blockade. They can probably be convinced to take this course of action and it is a good way to resolve the problem.
 
Luminous said:
Having been away from the thread, can anyone give me a rundown on the winning votes?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Here, have my last rundown. Keep in mind that since that we had a WoG that turned me, in particular, no longer neutral, in that Marienburg is a weapon supplier, which means that option 2 may end as an empire ending nuke too in my estimation, pushing me into no longer thinking this as an odds vs unavoidable but limited losses thing and going full team anti blockade

storryeater said:
Before we go on, let us think about the scenarios rationally.

Option 1: gunboat diplomacy

Scenario 1: Elves wash their hands of the whole thing, Marienburg folds, we win
Scenario 2: Elves accept Marienburgas a protectorate, then they order itto stop playing silly buggers because they do not want to antagonize the dawi, then they order the empire to cease hostilities. We win, even though the elves get to grandstand.
Scenario 3: The elf warhawks try to take advantage of this, there is a skirmish, the high king cuts them off, we win but its bloody.
Scenario 4: the elf warhawks play their cards just right. Everybody loses. This takes an absurd number of bad coincidences to happen, and I am only entertraining it because Tzeencth exist, otherwise I would just laugh it off and vote for war, no neutrality.

Option 2: 5 years

Only 1 scenario: we always win... if we can survive 5 years. Those years would be bloody for both Karaz Ankor and the Empire, cuz they are both constantly under siege and economic pressure, but at least we can maybe attempt to handle the consequences if orcs attack, or chaos takes advantage, or the counts take advantage of that for playing silly buggers. Question is, how bloody will be those 5 years? We may have to give up Stirland, we may have to see dwarfs dying guarding caravans, we may have to see peasants starving. Its a lot less likely to escalate as much as the other scenario, but it may still hurt both sides dearly and irrevocably, and in fact, it has a bigger chance to do so. Question is, is that worth even a tiny risk of nuclear war?

I cnnot decide, which is why I am voting both. But I am finding arguments that claim that either option is stupid to be unreasonable. Saying "I can never risk even a tiny chance of a nuke" or " we must gamble so that we can save lives, the odds are in our side, no need to spend lives which such good odds" sound to me like much better justification than saying that the worst case scenario of either choice will surely happen no matter what.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
Last edited:
Either the canal is an existential threat to Marienburg or it isn't. If it is, anything short of stopping building the canal will result in a fully war with them, so there is no point to taking a major economic hit to try to hold off such a war. If it isn't, it seems unlikely that Marienburg will fight a full-fledged war over the canal rather than back down. The only reason they would be willing to fight such a war over something not an existential threat to them is if they are confident of winning against a on-paper much stronger polity in the Empire and it's alliance with the dwarves. In that case, the only move we have is to not build the canal, as otherwise we will enter a war against an opponent with the upper hand against us. I do not see Marienburg and the elves being willing to fight a war of mutual annihilation unless the alternative is essentially mutual annihilation, anyway. Thus, for me, the arguments against the blockade seem to only work if we back down entirely and stop the canal, because either the canal is worth fighting a war over or it isn't, and if it isn't,how is fighting a war to enforce a blockade to stop the canal any different in terms of reasoning?
 
storryeater said:
Only 1 scenario:
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There's a second and a third scenario.

2: The Dwarves consider that building canals on their own sovereign land only incurs debt insofar it changes the river flow. The rest of the damages mentioned are silly Umgi business. Either Marienburg is considered in the right and sovereign over its waters, in which case the Empire was foolish to make themselves that dependent on a rival, or they are not, in which case the Empire is cowardly neglecting a Grudge. The Karaz Ankor pays far less than the Empire needs.

3: The Dwarf Kings involved consider the price to be too high, be it due to conservative investment and return calculations or due to questions of honor and fairness when it comes to what they are willing to pay for the right to build this stuff. But they respect the Empire's stake in this. So they decide to stop all constructions and meticulously burrow the canals without being prompted by the High King directly. They might also believe that certain parties owe them.
BoneyM said:
Depends how peaceful the coming years are.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Where do such weapons usually originate from? The Empire's military didn't seem like one that imports weapons en masse from abroad.
 
Last edited:
[X] They can make up for the loss in trade

Too many dwarven holds are gonna benefit from this canal, so I thinka little shared tightening of belts will be accepted if the rewards are worth it (not only the trade from canal, but also tweaking the ears of elves without blood needing to be spilled).

Also, I think the EIC can help defray costs both ways. It would eat up on company profits, but it would benefit us MASSIVELY if we can turn the loss of profits into faster/easier spread of EIC trade routes. It would even tie in to the Empire loyalty we've instilled in the company before.

I know the EIC cant handle all the trade for recompense if this vote wins, but hopefully we can push for the EIC to voluntarily take up a slightly greater than expected role.
 
Last edited:
I think people are seriously underestimating how serious a threat to the empire the lack of trade is.
 
Luminous said:
Having been away from the thread, can anyone give me a rundown on the winning votes?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Option A - We tell the Chamberlain that in the event of a blockade, Barak Varr would be willing to break the blockade through the strength of their navy. Marienburg either backs down or loses their navy, because dwarves don't do brinkmanship, they do promises. This is absolutely, definitely true, to Mathilde's mind and to the thread's though there is some debate about whether this is a good outcome.

Option B - We tell the Chamberlain the Empire can get the Karaz Ankor to pay for the economic damage Marienburg inflicts upon the Empire. This may not be true - though Mathilde will believe it if we vote for it - and definitely leaves both polities weakened for the 5 year duration, so you'd better hope nothing bad happens. In Warhammer.
 
Sir Bidoof said:
Either the canal is an existential threat to Marienburg or it isn't. If it is, anything short of stopping building the canal will result in a fully war with them, so there is no point to taking a major economic hit to try to hold off such a war. If it isn't, it seems unlikely that Marienburg will fight a full-fledged war over the canal rather than back down. The only reason they would be willing to fight such a war over something not an existential threat to them is if they are confident of winning against a on-paper much stronger polity in the Empire and it's alliance with the dwarves. In that case, the only move we have is to not build the canal, as otherwise we will enter a war against an opponent with the upper hand against us. I do not see Marienburg and the elves being willing to fight a war of mutual annihilation unless the alternative is essentially mutual annihilation, anyway. Thus, for me, the arguments against the blockade seem to only work if we back down entirely and stop the canal, because either the canal is worth fighting a war over or it isn't, and if it isn't,how is fighting a war to enforce a blockade to stop the canal any different in terms of reasoning?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Marienburg can saber rattle all it wants; the danger is Ulthuan, with which it has a defensive treaty. If we start things with Marienburg, Ulthuan gets involved. If they start things with us, Ulthuan doesn't.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top